Eratosthenes first measured the circumference of the earth from the shadows cast by the sun. Today, humanity's fitness to survive will be measured by our ability to conquer that same thermonuclear fusion that casts those shadows. Thus, Prometheus will truly be unbound.

"The mind is a compact, multiply connected thought mass with internal connections of the most intimate kind. It grows continuously as new thought masses enter it, and this is the means by which it continues to develop."

Bernhard Riemann On Psychology and Metaphysics ca. 1860

Today's Elites

Saturday, October 22, 2016

A result of the fact that human creativity is capable of scientific revolutions is the extension of our very limited mammalian senses into the much broader electromagnetic spectrum. It is the case that we now know that many species are capable of sensing parts of that spectrum walled off from human sense perceptions to ensure their survivability.

A recent study, for instance, hypothesizes a biophysical mechanism that may underlie migratory animal perception of the earth's magnetic field. This research is a prime example of how scientific hypotheses are generated by taking advantage of previous such revolutions.

Further, it must be emphasized that there exists a hierarchical ordering of life forms on this planet that culminates in the unique feature of humanity to go beyond our own bounded senses. This is what Vladimir Vernadsky called the Noosphere. Our ongoing survival, unlike lower species, hinges upon successive creative breakthroughs that provide us previously unknown resources.

In order for civilization to progress as rapidly as possible this uniquely human potential must be nurtured and heightened. It is the emotional correlative that accompanies great discoveries that is produced in classical forms of art which is the life blood of this creativity. It is the shared human faculty for creation and appreciation of great beauty in the arts that underlies such necessary progress.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

The principle that there is an hierarchical ordering of the earth's biosphere that determines evolution is born out in recent research that shows adaption via disparate genomic pathways in different species. Thus the vector of evolution is not random genetic mutation but a energy landscape constrained and bounded by conditions that prevail in similar ways globally. This is to say that there is a reverse projective conformal causal geometry at work.

The idea of a pre-established harmonic ordering that Leibniz proffered is quite real. To understand the implications of this though, one must go beyond the relatively fixed range of possible mutations in mere biological evolution. Indeed, we need to project backwards from the unique nature of humanity's defining characteristic. We are not limited in the same way that all other species are in this regard. We can consciously change our mode of energy throughput via deliberate innovations to move to previously unknown resource bases. It is this higher ordered non random lawfulness that thereby governs all possible forms of evolution. This unique property of human creativity provably exists necessarily. It alone is the measure of all things.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

The whole tone of this article really gets to what is wrong with the American electorate's reality show mindset. Throughout there is a mawkish and fawning aggrandizement of Hillary and company which resembles nothing so much as worship of the gods of Olympus -- Hollywood style.

These were the gods that were capricious and downright bestial. And if you mocked them as anything but perfect then you were ostracized or even sentenced to drink hemlock. Thus Hillary will have a scorched earth vendetta for the vast conspiracy of Julian Assange and the Kremlin from on high in her aerie perch in Mount Olympus.

But lightning bolts and Greek warships won't be launched this time. This time whom the gods would destroy they drive mad and hand over the control of nuclear weapons.

Thursday, October 06, 2016

The doctrine of absolute sovereign immunity is irrational. It is therefore baseless. The real overarching issue is imperialism and geopolitics. The sovereignty of Saudi Arabia, for instance, is a fiction concocted for the interests above and behind control of oil resources. Wars of aggression to expand such control are imperialistic. The issue of the human right to procure freedom from this control in order to provide advancement of potential future well being of citizenry overrules the system of supposed "noblesse oblige" whatever permutation that might take.

The United States Constitution in essence already ended sovereign immunity by replacing it with a principle first and foremost of promotion of the future welfare of its citizens.It is that principle which is sovereign and relegates all other claim subordinate to it.

A NIGHT-PIECE ON DEATH

By the blue taper's trembling light,

No more I waste the wakeful night,Intent with endless view to poreThe schoolmen and the sages o'er:Their books from wisdom widely stray,Or point at best the longest way.I'll seek a readier path, and goWhere wisdom's surely taught below.

How deep yon azure dyes the sky,Where orbs of gold unnumber'd lie,While through their ranks in silver prideThe nether crescent seems to glide!The slumbering breeze forgets to breathe,The lake is smooth and clear beneath,Where once again the spangled showDescends to meet our eyes below.The grounds which on the right aspire,In dimness from the view retire:The left presents a place of graves,Whose wall the silent water laves.That steeple guides thy doubtful sight,Among the livid gleams of night.There pass, with melancholy state,By all the solemn heaps of fate,And think, as softly-sad you treadAbove the venerable dead,'Time was, like thee they life possess'd,And time shall be, that thou shalt rest.'

Those graves, with bending osier bound,That nameless heave the crumbled ground,Quick to the glancing thought discloseWhere Toil and Poverty repose.

The flat smooth stones that bear a name,The chisel's slender help to fame,Which, e'er our set of friends decay,Their frequent steps may wear away,A middle race of mortals own,Men half-ambitious, all unknown.

The marble tombs that rise on high,Whose dead in vaulted arches lie,Whose pillars swell with sculptured stones,Arms, angels, epitaphs, and bones;--These (all the poor remains of state)Adorn the rich, or praise the great;Who while on earth in fame they live,Are senseless of the fame they give.

Ha! while I gaze, pale Cynthia fades,The bursting earth unveils the shades!All slow, and wan, and wrapp'd with shrouds,They rise in visionary crowds,And all with sober accent cry,'Think, mortal, what it is to die!'

Now from yon black and funeral yew,That bathes the charnal-house with dew,Methinks I hear a voice begin;(Ye ravens, cease your croaking din,Ye tolling clocks, no time resoundO'er the long lake and midnight ground!)It sends a peal of hollow groans,Thus speaking from among the bones:

'When men my scythe and darts supply,How great a king of fears am I!They view me like the last of things:They make, and then they dread, my stings.Fools! if you less provoked your fears,No more my spectre-form appears.Death's but a path that must be trod,If man would ever pass to God:A port of calms, a state of easeFrom the rough rage of swelling seas.

Nor can the parted body know,Nor wants the soul these forms of woe:As men who long in prison dwell,With lamps that glimmer round the cell,Whene'er their suffering years are run,Spring forth to greet the glittering sun:Such joy, though far transcending sense,Have pious souls at parting hence.On earth, and in the body placed,A few, and evil years, they waste:But when their chains are cast aside,See the glad scene unfolding wide,Clap the glad wing and tower away,And mingle with the blaze of day!'

Thomas Parnell

For Annie

Thank Heaven! the crisis-The danger is past,And the lingering illnessIs over at last-And the fever called "Living"Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I knowI am shorn of my strength,And no muscle I moveAs I lie at full length-But no matter!-I feelI am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,Now, in my bedThat any beholderMight fancy me dead-Might start at beholding me,Thinking me dead.

For now, while so quietlyLying, it fanciesA holier odorAbout it, of pansies-A rosemary odor,Commingled with pansies-With rue and the beautifulPuritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,Bathing in manyA dream of the truthAnd the beauty of Annie-Drowned in a bathOf the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,She fondly caressed,And then I fell gentlyTo sleep on her breast-Deeply to sleepFrom the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,She covered me warm,And she prayed to the angelsTo keep me from harm-To the queen of the angelsTo shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,Now, in my bed,(Knowing her love)That you fancy me dead-And I rest so contentedly,Now, in my bed,(With her love at my breast)That you fancy me dead-That you shudder to look at me,Thinking me dead.

But my heart it is brighterThan all of the manyStars in the sky,For it sparkles with Annie-It glows with the lightOf the love of my Annie-With the thought of the lightOf the eyes of my Annie.

Edgar Allan Poe

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.

The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.